


Everything You Want

by stickmarionette



Series: Futilities Arc [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon - First Anime, Canon - Manga, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-21
Updated: 2010-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 17:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickmarionette/pseuds/stickmarionette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The sullen quiet of his office is only ever shattered by the return of the Fullmetal Alchemist. There is something significant in that little fact, Roy thinks, and immediately decides to acquire a different source of distracting noise as soon as possible.</i>  Roy is a bit of a bastard and Ed isn't what he used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything You Want

**Author's Note:**

> Named after the song by Vertical Horizon.

The sullen quiet of his office is only ever shattered by the return of the Fullmetal Alchemist. There is something significant in that little fact, Roy thinks, and immediately decides to acquire a different source of distracting noise as soon as possible.

Ed takes three long strides towards his desk and somehow manages to loom over him, gold eyes flashing. With a bitter pang of shock, Roy realizes that the boy has grown taller in his absence. If he stood up, they would almost see eye to eye.

Roy is good with words, so he does not miss the cruel irony of that particular metaphor. It's frequently a miracle when he and Ed agree with each other, after all.

"Is something the matter, Fullmetal?" he drawls, pleased when it comes out bland, condescending, _normal_.

The resounding crash when Ed slams his hands down on Roy's new desk is normal too, reassuring in its familiarity, even if the cloth enclosing that tense, coiled body is no longer crimson. Black makes him look sombre and pale, and Roy takes a moment to ponder the change, wondering how and when Ed had outgrown his trademark red.

"There damn well is, you bastard," Ed growls at him, and with yet another pang of shock Roy registers the change in his voice. In the space of the enormous teenager-shaped gaping holes he had left behind in Amestris, Ed had grown into an adult, and he had – somehow – completely missed it. "Just when I was making some progress in Xing, you have the nerve to drag me back here?"

Roy is very good at playing these games, so he can smirk and say, bland as you please, "You do realize State Alchemists have to report in once a year, Fullmetal. You've been gone for 2 years; I could have had your qualification revoked."

He expects more growled out complaints, maybe some shouting, and then everything would go back to normal and he could find something else for the boy – man now, he amends, bitterly – to do in about a month's time.

Ed does none of these things. Instead, he bares his teeth at Roy silently and reaches out with one hand to clear a space on the massive desk, casually sweeping a pile of delicate, top secret documents aside. Roy thinks about reprimanding him for it, but Ed twists and hops onto the desk, lightning-quick before he even opens his mouth, one leg dangling off the side and boots making dents in the expensive wood.

This is an old habit, which makes it routine, makes it fine, but he had seldom indulged Ed in it before and he isn't about to start now. Besides, presenting your back to the leader of your country is just plain rude.

Then Ed turns so that his profile is visible instead, and Roy remembers with a sharp pain that Ed has never really trusted him when he could see him, let alone when he couldn't.

"You could have - but you didn't," Ed says quietly, suddenly civil and twice as dangerous.

Dangerous, because at these times Roy can almost believe that Ed is making something out of their strange relationship and that is completely unacceptable.

An angry Ed is vastly preferable to a civil Ed whether in discussion or in bed for this very reason.

Not that the latter has happened at all lately, not when the blond had been gone without a word for two whole years.

That dark thought makes his tone just a bit more patronizing.

"It would have been a waste. You _are_ after all a valuable resource for the state."

Ed tosses his braid over his shoulder, the whole motion radiating effortless disdain. "Fuck you," he snarls, but there is a peculiar twist to his lips that could almost be a smile on a different face, with different eyes.

Even that hint of a smile inspires a sort of infantile panic in him, a desire to _correct_, because it hints at a level of normality in their interactions that approaches a relationship, and that is terribly wrong on so many different levels.

Roy has a procedure for dealing with these signs, particularly when they come from Fullmetal. It involves correction, rectification, and the stamping out of any hint of feeling on either of their parts.

So he speaks as mockingly and loftily as he can manage, even as every fibre of his body and even some parts of his heart scream in protest.

"Thank you for the offer, but I'm afraid I've got prior engagements tonight."

Ed's eyes darken beautifully when he is hurt or angry, or even both.

Roy notes this with an air of clinical observation even as he tries to avoid speculation on the specific emotion. Usually, this darkening of the eyes is accompanied by plenty of noise, but Ed has been gone for two years and has evidently grown up in more than just the physical sense. Grown up and beyond Roy's reach, most likely, but he isn't going to find that out.

Not if he manages to push Ed back to an appropriate distance against the overwhelming and irrational urge to hold him closer, hold him _in_ and make sure that he doesn't leave again.

"It wasn't an offer, you egotistical bastard," Ed mutters, eyes fixed on a point beyond his right ear. "If you're so damn busy then set a fucking date for the reassessment so I can get going."

The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. "So eager to be going, Fullmetal?"

Something in Roy's tone makes Ed's eyes snap back to his face, but what the blond sees there makes him look away again. "We're making progress there, and you'd know that if you bothered to read my reports. Honestly, why waste my time making me write them if you aren't even going to look at it?"

Roy doesn't say 'your reports are so damn clinical they hurt to read and you never mention me anymore, not even an insult', but he wants to.

In the end, he only shrugs elegantly. "I'm a busy man."

Ed snorts. "You're not the only one, so get on with it, asshole."

There is no hesitation in the blond's voice, no regret, no trace of emotion at all. Suddenly, with the most bitter and shocking sense of surprise, Roy begins to understand.

He has to ask, now. "What did you find in Xing that Amestris didn't have?"

Ed actually smiles at this, delivered in a tone that is far too revealing and far too soft. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, his reply is flat and expressionless.

"A cure for Al."

And that, of course, is the answer, or at least a part of it. The long and fruitless search for the Philosopher's Stone had worn Ed down. If he hadn't been broken by the pressure of his own intense dedication and guilt, he had at least bent in strange and frightening ways.

"How long has it been?" he asks, frightened of the answer.

"I was eleven when you first met me," Ed says blandly. "I turned nineteen last month, Furher Mustang."

Eight years. Roy is tempted to ask the blond if he's even capable of caring about anything other than his brother's cure anymore, but he doesn't want that to be taken in the wrong way.

Or is it the right way, now?

 

_fin._


End file.
